Good morning, everyone. What an honor it is, to take part in Safer Internet Day 2018 with you, the future leaders of this state and nation. For more than eight years, I have had the privilege to serve as one of five members of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is an 84-year-old agency, which makes rules and sets policies for many of the communications services you use every day, like wireless and landline telephones, cable and free over-the-air television, radio stations, satellite companies and yes, the internet.

Regulators like me realize, accept and embrace our duty, obligation, and responsibility to nurture and protect you. Like those adults who did the same for me, how we go about it today is in many ways different. But in some ways, it is the same as it was when I was in middle and high school. Our police officers and firefighters still take a vow to protect and serve; teachers and counselors maintain their commitment to educate and offer guidance; nurses, doctors and clinicians continue to take an oath, to help us heal. They represent professionals with specific skill sets, that are focused on looking after us when we are vulnerable or in need of support and protection.

But as we move further into the second decade of the 21st century, technology, while it is creating new opportunities, it has opened the door to dangers that did not exist, when I sat in the seats that you occupy. This means that in addition to those who were there for me and my classmates, we are joined today by agencies like the FCC to keep you safe.

Our number one responsibility at the FCC, is to uphold and protect the public interest. That not only means ensuring that everyone is connected, with the ability to use their cell phone, access the internet, receive a television broadcast, or cable signal, but when you use those platforms, you and everyone else should be safe. We work closely with other government agencies, local, state and federal, to provide information about online safety to you, and those who are younger, by finding effective ways, to erase cyberbullying and protect your privacy.

The internet is amazing. It has made engaging in political discussions, and joining online petitions more accessible than ever before. I mention this in particular, because as a public servant, I appreciate the ability to hear from you about issues that matter the most. Each of you has the means to make your voices heard at the FCC, and you should speak up, because the decisions we make at the FCC today, will determine your relationship with your cell phone, internet, and media content provider tomorrow.

Now raise your hand if you have heard anything about net neutrality. For those of you who don’t know, net neutrality is the concept, that people like you and me, should be able to access the online apps and services of your choice, without the company that provides you with internet service, interfering. Say you want to binge watch your favorite show over your mobile phone or tablet. Net neutrality means your internet provider should not be allowed to slow down your connection. In other words, net neutrality is the idea, that all legal traffic that travels over the internet, should be treated equally.

In December, the majority of the FCC voted to repeal our nation’s net neutrality protections. I objected. Leading up to this vote, I heard from millions of supporters of net neutrality, particularly young people not much older than you, who shared with me why it is so important to have access to a free and open internet.

Unlike my generation, you are digital natives. You have grown up in and around technology in a way that I could only have dreamed of, when I was at Fairwold Middle School in Columbia, South Carolina. So, in the spirit of the good old days that I had in junior high school, it’s time for a pop quiz. I promise, I will not issue any grades if you play along with me.

Raise your hand if you have internet at home. Keep your hand up if you have an internet connection at school. Now raise your hand if you have a cellphone… and keep your hand up if you have your cellphone in your pocket or purse right now. This showed everyone watching two things: one that just about everyone in this room is fortunate, because you are connected through a personal device here, at school, at home, or at public libraries. The internet is a part of your everyday life, in a way that was unimaginable even just a decade ago. It has become an essential part of our economy and our lifestyle. But not everyone in America is so fortunate

There are more than 24 million people in this country, who lack access to a fast and reliable internet connection, and those limits bring challenges, that go well beyond the ability to use Snapchat or YouTube. Without a reliable internet connection, research for completing homework assignments, the ability to apply for jobs, and participate in our democracy, becomes extremely difficult.

This is why I see my job, as an FCC Commissioner, as one which fights for fast, affordable, open internet for all. When everyone in our society can join us online, we create better opportunities for every American. We can learn about each other and have reasons to better respect each other, through meaningful online interactions. This is a future that I know we can all benefit from being a part of.

What I can say with confidence is that the internet is the most incredible, enabling and democratizing innovation of your lifetime. It has launched historic and conscious changing movements. It has exposed wrongdoings and brought down some of our nation’s most powerful and influential. It has helped to create the largest number of young billionaires in our nation’s history by allowing creative, life altering ideas, to quickly come to market. It has changed the way we learn, eat, buy, sell and interact with each other.

The internet has shaped your lives and has erased the need to have a storefront to get products or services to market. It has allowed us to go straight to consumers without using a middleman who could eat away at our profits. It allows you to share your personal story with the world without anyone standing in your way. The internet, when it is free and open, prohibits any gatekeeper, company or government, from blocking, slowing down or making you pay more for the same access to content and services online.

The internet affords endless opportunities for everyone. But, this kind of power is something you should never take for granted. You cannot let your guard down when it comes to ensuring that this freedom of access remains in your hands. None of us should. The opportunities you enjoy today by being online, are not shared by everyone around the world. And if we are not vigilant, if we do not work hard at ensuring that the power of the internet remains with you, its future may look very different from today. The internet is a powerful tool, and its usefulness and functionality, rests literally in your pockets. The internet does and should forever belong to you.

And as each of you grow, learn, move on to high school, college or advanced training, and ultimately join the workforce, you will continue to shape what the internet looks like, through your actions and aspirations. Leaving this powerful invention in better shape than you found it, is your responsibility. Finding ways to ensure that the internet is a safer place not just for you, but for adults like me, is largely in your hands.Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to join you today here in Austin. Accept and embrace the power and responsibility you have at your fingertips, and if we have time for questions and comments, I would be happy to hear more from you.

Tuesday, February 6th is Safer Internet Day. The big U.S. celebration will be in Austin, but you don’t have to come to Texas to participate. It will be live streamed starting at 11:30 AM eastern. This year’s theme is “Create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you.” FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will be the keynote speaker.

Safer Internet Day started in 2004 as an initiative of the European Union. It gained official recognition in the U.S. in late 2012, with a joint agreement between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the European Commission to work together to build a better internet for youth. ConnectSafely.org, the nonprofit internet safety group where I serve as CEO, was asked to become the U.S. host.

As we say on our SaferInternetDay.us website, “Safer Internet Day aims to not only create a safer internet but also a better internet, where everyone is empowered to use technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively.” It’s an important reminder of how the internet can empower individuals and communities to improve their lives and make the world a better place.

Although aimed primarily at youth, Safer Internet Day is a good time for all internet users to think about how they create, connect and share respect. You don’t have to be an artist, musician or a poet to create online. In the world of social media, we’re all creators, even if our contribution is as simple as sharing recipes, our thoughts on world events or an occasional photo. Even commenting on other people’s posts is a form of creativity.

Of course we do want people to be safe, which includes making sure your devices are secure with unique and hard-to-guess passwords or biometric security such as fingerprints and facial recognition backed up with secure passwords. I also recommend using two-factor authentication, so before anyone can log into your accounts on a new device, they must enter a code that’s sent to a smartphone or other device. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and most other online companies offer this feature. You’ll find links to instructions at ConnectSafely.org/TwoFactor.

Safety also includes thinking before you post or respond to other people’s posts. We don’t tell people not to interact with strangers. Getting to know people is one of the great benefits of the internet. But we do advise that you be extremely cautious until you’ve met people in the real world and have good reason to trust them. Online, kids and adults can be victimized by seemingly wonderful people who are not who they claim to be. This is especially true when it comes to romantic encounters or financial offers. Anyone or anything that seems “too good to be true,” probably is. And it’s not just kids who need this advice. After years of focusing on kids safety, ConnectSafely last year published The Senior’s Guide to Online Safety (connectsafely.org/seniors) for seniors and those who care for them.

Getting back to this year’s Safer Internet Day theme, it’s also important to “share respect,” in the way you treat yourself and others online. This not only includes avoiding bullying and harassment, but also being kind and respectful even to those who don’t share your views. Being mean online is a little like road rage — the disinhibition we experience when surrounded by thousands of pounds of steel and glass. I’m reminded of a time when I accidentally cut someone off as I was pulling into a parking lot. He expressed his extreme anger through facial expressions and hand gestures until I rolled down the window to apologize. Once that human interaction was established his expression softened and his hand gesture switched to a friendly wave.

Of course, online threats have changed since Safer Internet Day was established. Some of those rude online comments aren’t even from fellow social media users. They could be from bots designed to stir up trouble or professional trolls paid to divide people. And, as the New York Times pointed out last Sunday, they could be impersonators, falsely representing themselves as celebrities, politicians or just regular folks such as Minnesota teenager Jessica Rychly whose photograph and bio were reportedly used on a fake Twitter account that wound up “hawking Canadian real estate investments, cryptocurrency and a radio station in Ghana.”

There are sometimes tell-tale signs of bots such as slight changes in spelling of a name, accounts that follow thousands of people yet have few of their own followers or accounts with an excessive number of posts or tweets, but these subtle clues can be difficult to discern.

There’s also the risk of an account being hijacked, which is sometimes detectable through posts or tweets that seem out-of-the-ordinary for that person. Twitter and Facebook often assign small blue verification badges to celebrities, journalists, politicians and other public figures as well as organizations and brands to indicate that their identities have been verified.

When it comes to children, parents remain the best internet safety resource available, and you don’t need to be tech savvy to help your kids protect themselves. Start with conversations — not lectures — and ask your kids what they do online and how they protect themselves. Ask them about the apps they use, but don’t make it seem like an FBI investigation. Know that keeping safe is less about specific apps and technology and more about best practices across all apps such as being careful what you share, being nice to others and knowing how to configure your privacy settings, block unwanted people and report abuse.

There’s nothing magical about this coming Tuesday, but because it’s Safer Internet Day, it’s as good a time as any to sit down with your kids, your partner, your colleagues or just your friends to talk about how you can help make the internet safer for yourself and those you care about and better for everyone

One way to greatly strengthen your password is to enhance it with another authentication system. It’s called “two factor” or “multi-factor” authentication and it works the same way your ATM card does. Access requires something you have and something you know. The most common form of dual factor authentication, supported by Google, Facebook, Apple and many other companies, is requiring that you access your smartphone before you can use a site from an unknown device. In some cases, you get a text message with a code that you have to type in before you can access the site. Others require that you use an app on your phone to provide permission when logging on to another device. Either way, you need to have physical possession of your phone as well as your password to get in.

To avoid annoying you constantly, most dual factor authentication schemes only kick-in when you are using a device or a browser that you haven’t previously used with that service. That won’t prevent someone who has access to your PC or phone from logging in if they know your password, but it will make it considerably harder for a remote attacker to break in, which is the main risk that we worry about.

Dual factor authentication can add a little more hassle and if you clear the cookies from your browser, you may have to use it even if it’s from a device you’ve used before. You may also be required to use dual factor authentication if you’re traveling and, speaking of traveling, there could be times when you don’t have access to your phone such as when you’re out of the country or if you can’t find it or if the battery dies. That’s why there is usually a backup code that you’ll need but, it’s typically a long sequence of numbers that you’ll need to write down and carry in your wallet.

Sunday is “Data Privacy Day,” when a host of companies, nonprofits and government agencies remind people to take steps to protect their privacy. The event is sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA)

Alliance executive director Russell Schrader said in a recent interview that “everyday should be Data Privacy Day,” and I agree. We need to think about our privacy regularly. Still, it’s a good time for industry and the government to concentrate on policies, procedures and their enforcement, and for the rest of us to focus on our personal privacy. On a similar note, Feb. 6 is “Safer Internet Day,” which is hosted by my nonprofit, ConnectSafely.org. We’ll be holding an event that day for middle and high school students in Austin, Texas, that will be live-streamed at SaferInternetDay.us/livestream.

When I asked Schrader to share his top privacy tips, his answers seemed like a primer for security, which makes sense because privacy and security go hand-in-hand. “Always update your software,” was his main advice. “There are bugs that are constantly being fixed behind the scenes,” he said, “but they don’t do any good unless you install them.”

I agree, even though there are occasional updates that backfire, such as Intel’s much maligned “fix” to the recently disclosed security flaw in its processors. After rolling out the patches, Intel recommended that “OEMs, cloud service providers, system manufacturers, software vendors and end users stop deployment of current versions, as they may introduce higher than expected reboots and other unpredictable system behavior.” The company is working on another fix, which hopefully won’t cause machines to spontaneously reboot.

Despite this unfortunate situation with Intel, I continue to make sure my devices are updated with the latest versions of operating systems, browsers and other essential software because the risk of a bad fix is significantly lower than the risk from not applying these security updates.

Schrader’s second tip is to beef up your passwords. He recommends a “pass phrase” rather than simply a password. Such a phrase should be relatively long – perhaps 20 characters or so and consist of seemingly random words strung together along with numbers, symbols and upper and lower case letters. Think of something that you can remember but others couldn’t guess such as YellowChocolate#56CadillacFi$h.

Don’t use the same phrase for every service. They can be similar but slightly different by adding a word or letters that will remind you of the service associated with this particular variant of your pass phrase. Another trick is to come up with a phrase and use the first letter of each word such as I met my friend Sally Smith at a dance party at Lincoln High School in 1988. That would be “ImmfSSaadpaLHSi#1988,” which is both long and meaningless.

Schrader also advises people to “think before you share to own your online presence, and always be aware of what you’re posting.” He compares personal information to money: “you should value it, and you should protect it.”

Thinking before sharing is always good advice. I am sometimes amazed what people post on social media, apparently without giving much thought to how it might affect them in the future. I have a friend whose wife broke up with him on Facebook. I learned about the pending divorce before he did. I suppose that’s one way of dumping your spouse but not exactly a best practice when it comes to personal privacy let alone a decent way to treat someone whom you once loved.

I’ve also seen people post publicly on Facebook or Twitter when they meant to send a private message. Both services allow for private messaging, but you had better learn how to do it so it’s really private.

Another thing I’ve experienced is accidentally forwarding emails to the wrong person or having private information as part of a thread of a message that eventually gets shared with others. A number of years ago I got a slightly unpleasant email from an editor, which I forwarded to my wife with a comment but instead of hitting forward, I hit reply. Remarkably, my career at that newspaper didn’t end that day, but it could have.

There are tools we can use to protect our privacy and security, but we need to know their limits. Most browsers have a private or “incognito” mode which prevents the browser from keeping a history of what you do, but that doesn’t prevent the servers you interact with from recording your activities.

A virtual private network such as ExpressVPN or NordVPN can make your computer look as though it’s located in another city or country through a secure connection. VPNs go a long way toward protecting your privacy and security, but if your machine is infected with a keylogger, that data can still be captured. VPNs can sometimes affect performance, although my recent experience with ExpressVPN has been pretty good as long as I route my communications through a city in the U.S. When I routed through Europe, it got noticeably slower.

While some aspects of our privacy are under our direct control, some aren’t, which is why it’s important to try to deal only with reputable companies, know their privacy policies and hold them accountable. There are also privacy policy issues that individuals can weigh-in on but not control such as Congress’ recent act that gives internet service providers more rights to use our data. To influence those important privacy policy issues, we need to be vigilant and make our voices heard.

ConnectSafely Hosts U.S. Safer Internet Day in Austin, TX on February 6th FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn to keynote

PALO ALTO, CA — Jan 25, 2018, — ConnectSafely.org, the nonprofit organization dedicated to educating users of connected technology about safety, privacy and security, is hosting the official U.S. Safer Internet Day celebration in Austin, Texas on Tuesday, February 6th.

Safer Internet Day (#SID2018) is a global event, celebrated on the same day in more than 100 countries around the world. The event gained official recognition in the U.S. in 2012, with a joint agreement between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the European Commission to work together to build a better internet for youth. ConnectSafely was appointed U.S. host in 2013. The 2018 theme is “Create, connect and share respect: A better internet starts with you.”

This year’s main event, which takes place at Austin’s Omni Hotel, brings together hundreds of Austin-area middle and high school students, policy makers and tech industry leaders to discuss internet safety. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will provide a keynote address. Other speakers include Austin Independent School District superintendent Paul Cruz, National PTA President James Accomando and executives from Google, Facebook, Trend Micro, After School, Roblox and other tech companies.

Speeches will be short to leave room for an interactive student activity lead by ConnectSafely K-12 education director and veteran educator Kerry Gallagher. Students will also have the opportunity to visit interactive exhibits such as a virtual reality anti-bullying experience.

“Safer Internet Day is an opportunity for people around the world to look for ways to make the online world not just safer, but better,” said ConnectSafely CEO Larry Magid. “ConnectSafely is proud to host the U.S. celebration in cooperation with public officials, tech companies, other nonprofits and, most important, students from Austin and across the country who will be joining us in person or via the stream.”

Ahead of her keynote, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn (@MClyburnFCC) said “Ensuring the safety of our youth online is a top priority that requires a multi-pronged approach in the digital age. Support from parents, educators, tech companies, non-profits and regulators can ensure a more secure environment in which all students have access to high-speed broadband and the digital literacy skills needed for the jobs and opportunities of tomorrow.”

The event, which will be live streamed to schools across the country (SaferInternetDay.us/livestream), runs from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with doors opening at 9:30 a.m. Lunch and refreshments are provided.

In partnership with National PTA, ConnectSafely is also hosting a separate Safer Internet Day Family Night dinner event at Facebook’s Austin headquarters for elementary school students and their parents. This free event includes breakout sessions for parents and kids, hands-on activities and an appearance by “Clicky,” the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s “spokesrobot” who teaches kids about proper online behavior.

U.S. Safer Internet Day 2018 is a collaboration of tech companies, nonprofits and public agencies, including Google, Symantec/Lifelock, Facebook, Twitter, Trend Micro, Kik, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, After School, Austin Independent School District, National PTA, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Common Sense Media, Committee for Children, Internet Education Foundation, National Cyber Security Alliance, Family Online Safety Institute and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Roblox is more than just a gaming platform. It’s a place where people — often young people — develop and share their games and it’s getting very popular. To find out more about the service, its background and how it handles safety and privacy, ConnectSafely.org CEO and CBS News Tech Analyst Larry Magid spoke with Roblox Founder & CEO David Baszucki

Every year Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes on a challenge. One year it was to learn Mandarin. Another it was to visit every U.S. State and one year he ran 365 miles. This year, he’s doing something more important. “The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do,” he wrote in a blog post. And this year he’s focus on thinks liker

Protecting our community from abuse and hate

Defending against interference by nation states

Making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent

His “personal challenge for 2018 is to focus on fixing these important issues,” so that “we’ll end 2018 on a much better trajectory.”

Zuckerberg wrote that “one of the most interesting questions in technology right now is about centralization vs decentralization.” He said that most people believed that technolgoy would be a decentralizing force, “But today, many people have lost faith in that promise. With the rise of a small number of big tech companies — and governments using technology to watch their citizens — many people now believe technology only centralizes power rather than decentralizes it.”

And, of course, Facebook is one of those big companies, which touches the lives of more than 2 billion people around the world. Facebook also impacts what happens in the “real world,” including how people get the information they use to make important decisions, like electing their leaders. Although no-one has proved that what was posted on Facebook may have changed the outcome of the 2018 U.S. election, there is no question that it had some impact given the amount of fake news and Russian propaganda that was distributed on the platform.

Facebook also faces challenges when it comes to how people treat each other on its platform. It’s dedicated a lot of resources towards curbing cyberbullying and harassment, yet those remain issues for many Facebook users. Facebook has also been working to cut down on hate speech within its platform, but it has more to do in that regard.

Zuckerberg poitns to “counter-trends” like encryption and cryptocurrency, “that take power from centralized systems and put it back into people’s hands, but he says that they “come with the risk of being harder to control.”

While Zuckerberg is certainly right to worry about centralization, including the enormous power in his own hands, he also needs to think about how to use that power for good. Frankly, I don’t think that encryption and cyptrocurrency — as useful as they may be — are the solution. While I don’t have all the answers, I think the solution starts by acknowledging that Facebook has to work in a larger framework of cooperation both the regulatory bodies (governments) and organizations that advocate on behalf of constituencies and communities. My own non-profit, ConnectSafely.org is one of those organizations, which does work closely with Facebook as part of its Safety Advisory Board. And, while Facebook has consulted us and other groups and has even taken our advice from time to time, I think the company can do more when it comes to seeking and listening to advice.

Facebook is not alone. Social media, by definition, is subject to the whims and abuses of the people who use it and, as long as people have flaws, those flaws will be reflected in the media they contribute to. Still, there are things the company should and can do more.

]]>Internet Governance Forum tackles fake news, artificial intelligence and blockchainhttp://www.connectsafely.org/internet-governance-forum-tackles-fake-news-artificial-intelligence-and-blockchain/
Thu, 21 Dec 2017 16:20:58 +0000http://www.connectsafely.org/?p=15061By Larry Magid
For the past 12 years, the United Nations has sponsored the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a “multi-stakeholder” event that brings together people from governments around the world along with tech executives, nonprofits and academics.]]>By Larry Magid

For the past 12 years, the United Nations has sponsored the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a “multi-stakeholder” event that brings together people from governments around the world along with tech executives, nonprofits and academics. This year it was held in Geneva, Switzerland.

Although there are some technical sessions, most of the focus is on internet policy — issues that countries are struggling with as the internet becomes increasingly integrated into our lives. As usual, I’m speaking at sessions focused on child safety, but this year, there are some newer issues on the table including the advantages and risks of artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and fake news.

Listen to Larry’s segment about IGF on Washington DC’s WTOP radio

Fake news seems to be the most dominant subject. It came up in nearly every session I attended, including some that seemingly had nothing to do with the subject. As in the United States, people around the world are concerned about its impact on elections and social discourse, and there is plenty of evidence of state-sponsored fake news affecting elections in several countries.

There are two distinct types of “fake news.” There is “real” fake news. Real in the sense that the term clearly applies because such stories are either totally fabricated or at least largely untrue. And then there is “fake” fake news when someone uses that term to refer to news outlets or stories that they don’t agree with. Despite high-profile claims to the contrary, when a journalist makes a mistake, it’s not fake news, especially if the story is corrected.

Fake news even came up in a session I attended on blockchain technologies. Blockchain, is the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It’s essentially a ledger or database that can be distributed across multiple devices. It allows people to exchange information or value without revealing unnecessary details including the people involved or what is being exchanged. As you’d expect, it is being used for illegal drug and weapons deals and other shady transactions, but there are lots of legitimate users and plenty of well-respected players, including IBM. Even major banks are investigating blockchain as a way to create confidential ledgers for the way they account for funds.

Blockchain makes it possible to authenticate a transaction, a thing or a person without having to reveal details to other parties. Imagine if you had a driver’s license or a passport that didn’t have your name or your picture, but when you showed it to authorities, they could issue you a traffic ticket or let you into a country without ever having to know your name.

One of the blockchain experts at the session said that it is already being used to authenticate news sources to make sure they’re legitimate or at least accountable. Others suggested it could be used to provide identity authentication for undocumented refugees who may not have passports.

Artificial intelligence was also a big topic at IGF. I attended a workshop on the Social Responsibility and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, chaired by Urs Gasser, director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Three of the speakers were from China and each emphasized how the Chinese government is investing in AI, pointing out that China’s researchers are focused mainly on developing practical applications vs. the more theoretical research taking place in the U.S.

Yi Ma, who’s about to join the Computer Sciences department at UC Berkeley pointed out that China is already on par with the U.S. in AI and is on track to becoming the world leader by 2030, especially when it comes to developing AI applications.

Like others on the panel, he argued that the benefits of AI are enormous despite the challenges, which include the privacy implications of the vast amount of data collected, the potential for the humans who program AI to inject their own biases into the code and the risk of bad actors creating their own AI applications or injecting malicious code into otherwise benign applications. All of the panelists agreed that jobs will be eliminated, including some white collar jobs that have, so far, escaped being affected by automation. However, all also agreed that AI will usher in new jobs. Still, just as has long been true with jobs replaced by technologies, there will be some who will be able to move on and thrive as a result of the new technology and others who get left behind.

The panelists laughed at but dismissed the Hollywood plot line of rogue machines morphing into super-intelligent combatants in a power struggle with humans, creating an existential threat to our survival. While such scenarios sell movie tickets, they don’t reflect the likely risks of AI, which is typical of how moral panics about new technologies often focus on the wrong risks.

And speaking of morphing and wrong risks, as I reflected on my time at this and previous forums, I couldn’t help but feel a little self-conscious about how the internet safety field that I’ve been involved with for more than 20 years has modified its own perceptions of risk. Early on, we focused almost exclusively on the risks of children’s access to pornography and many greatly exaggerated the likelihood of children being sexually abused by strangers they met online. Those risks, along with cyberbullying, remain real, but momentarily at least, they’re being overshadowed by newer risks that we couldn’t even imagine a few years ago.

I believe in the power of technology to connect people, to empower people to be creative, and to open doors to opportunities that would otherwise be closed. This does not mean that there aren’t mistakes that people can make with technology. I have made it my mission and my work to educate people so they can know the difference and use technology to make real positive change in their lives. Unfortunately, in a recent op-ed for the New York Times, David Brooks focuses only on the mistakes and boldly states:

“Some now believe tech is like the tobacco industry — corporations that make billions of dollars peddling a destructive addiction. Some believe it is like the N.F.L. — something millions of people love, but which everybody knows leaves a trail of human wreckage in its wake.”

Brooks starts his argument by talking about teenagers. He references data from Jean Twenge, to whom I responded in this recent post, showing that teens on social media are less likely to “hang out with friends, date, and work.” He failed to recognized data that demonstrates today’s teens are actually more healthy than their parents were as teens. The Center for Disease Control recently found, and Vox.com reported, that today’s teenagers are 46% less likely to binge drink and 21% less likely to have tried alcohol at all than 20 years ago. The percentage of teens who smoke cigarettes is down from 34.8% twenty years ago to 10.8% today. Teen pregnancy rates are also dropping. In many ways, perhaps due to more options for how to connect with their peers using social media, teens actually feel less compelled to engaged in risky behaviors. We are looking a new pattern of teen social behavior. New does not necessarily mean worse. In many ways, these new patterns are healthier.

The second concern expressed is the “compulsion loops” that capitalize on “dopamine surges” with social media use. The research behind this phenomenon is the basis for much of my recent work – as a blogger and speaker – for educators, students, and parents. Brooks argues that media companies like Facebook and Snapchat use what they know about our biological responses to certain stimuli to increase their profits. There is plenty of research from UCLA, Harvard, and more that demonstrates how posting about oneself on social media and getting likes and comments help with those “dopamine surges”. Just as parents faced the reality of helping their children learn healthy nutritional balance with the increased popularity of fast food in the late 20th century, today’s parents and teachers must help their children understand this research and learn how to balance healthy intake and production of media in an era of media-overload.

The third proffer in the op-ed is that tech companies produce and sell “technologies [that] are extremely useful for the tasks and pleasures that require shallower forms of consciousness, but they often crowd out and destroy the deeper forms of consciousness people need to thrive.” When Brooks makes this assertion, he fails to recognize that the users of technology are the ones in control of whether they are using “shallower” or “deeper” forms of consciousness. Technology itself it not evil or good. Technology creators and users determine whether they will create and use tech tools toward positive and active purposes. These uses include connecting with far away colleagues/friends/family, collaborating on a movie/infographic/digital artwork, building momentum for a social movement, and more. Does this mean that those creators and users will not make mistakes at times or indulge in some of those “shallower” activities? Of course not. Just as we indulge in a bowl of ice cream or a glass of wine, it is permissible to indulge occasionally in a game of Clash of Clans or a scroll through an Instagram feed. It is up to us to share our positive digital products far and wide, and to own up to our mistakes so that we can learn from them and use technology better moving forward.

Brooks closes saying that he wants tech to “pitch itself” with “realism” and “humility.” He says, “Imagine if instead of claiming to offer us the best things in life, tech merely saw itself as providing efficiency devices. Its innovations can save us time on lower-level tasks so we can get offline and there experience the best things in life.” I certainly agree that offline time engaging in hands on, in-person, nature-filled experiences is an essential part of being human. Tech can never offer us those things. In fact, tech is incapable of “pitching itself” to us at all. It’s creators can, but remember that those creators are also users. Blaming the tech itself is not helpful or useful. It is step back from taking personal responsibility for our behaviors and encouraging our children to do the same. We need to shift mindset away from blaming the tech, step up, and take action toward living healthy, positive, productive, full lives in a tech-rich world.

Kerry Gallagher is the Director of K-12 Education for ConnectSafely.org, in addition to her full-time role as Digital Learning Specialist at St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts. She blogs at Start with a Question.